For first time, Pierre-Paul, friends recall details of July 4 accident
WARNING: This post contains a graphic and potentially disturbing photograph at the bottom.
Holy cow.
That’s the G-rated version of what you might think as you scroll through the photos of Jason Pierre-Paul’s hand Sports Illustrated has posted, a series of gruesome pictures depicting the extent of damage done to the New York Giants defensive end’s right hand on July 4, when a firework exploded while he was still holding onto it.
Pierre-Paul and his friends spoke with Sports Illustrated reporter Jason Buckland, the first time he has shared, in detail, what happened that fateful night and in the hours and days that followed. Pierre-Paul gave the magazine permission to publish the photos, but let us say again before you scroll through them: they are gruesome.
Pierre-Paul had purchased over $1,000 of fireworks to wow his neighborhood children, a tradition he began a dozen years earlier, as a teenager, though the show got bigger as he made more money in the NFL.
According to Pierre-Paul, just before midnight he wanted to wrap things up, but a friend noticed that the U-Haul they’d piled the fireworks into was almost empty, so why not finish off the last few? Pierre-Paul decided to oblige, and that’s when the night took a scary turn.
Writes Buckland:
He attempted seven times to apply flame to fuse, to ignite a stick that would send a stream of colors rocketing into the night, but the wind kept blowing out his lighter. He remembers thinking, Let me try one more time. . .
Suddenly, success—and then an eruption, a bang and a blinding green-and-white light that, witnesses say, swallowed Pierre-Paul’s 6′ 5″, 278-pound frame. “I remember a big flash, and I heard boom!” says Farraw Germain, the mother of Pierre-Paul’s then eight-month-old son, Josiah. “There was a lot of smoke.” Pierre-Paul sensed trouble right away. “As soon as I saw the green light, I jumped,” he says. “I knew something dangerous was about to happen.”
Pierre-Paul dropped to the grass. But when he arose he smelled nothing, felt nothing. Then he heard Germain shriek in terror, “Your hand!”
He glanced down. The street had gone black again, but Pierre-Paul could make out a sight far more gruesome and shocking than anything he’d ever glimpsed on a football field. “I’m looking at my [right] hand and I’m seeing every ligament,” he recalls. “You only see this stuff in the movies.”
Pierre-Paul wrapped his shirt around his hand and jumped into the nearest car, which was Germain’s. A friend, Tarvarus Jackson, quickly got him to the nearest hospital, blowing through red lights as Pierre-Paul’s blood got all over the interior of the Porsche.
While Pierre-Paul was able to recount the story up until the point he and Jackson arrived at the hospital, Broward Health North, he doesn’t remember much of what happened after that, anesthsia, emergency surgeries and strong pain medications all conspiring to cloud his memory.
But he does remember telling doctors, “Whatever y’all do, do not cut off my hand.”
Since it was summer, and a holiday at that, it was hard to find the area’s top hand specialists. But Pierre-Paul’s camp, which included agent Eugene Parker (Parker died last month), was able to get Dr. Patrick Owens, an orthopedic surgeon who had experience treating professional athletes. Pierre-Paul was transferred to Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami and Owens and a cadre of associates began taking care of him.
It was not long after arriving at Jackson Memorial that Pierre-Paul’s family and reps were told that both his hand and career might be salvaged. Heavily medicated, Pierre-Paul didn’t know that yet.
The public drama was just beginning, as the world learned what had happened to Pierre-Paul, and the Giants, who sent Ronnie Barnes, the team’s vice president of medical services, and former player Jessie Armstead, a special team assistant and mentor to Pierre-Paul, were trying to figure out what was happening as well.
Germain met the pair at a Dunkin’ Donuts and explained that he couldn’t be seen; in his semi-conscious state, Pierre-Paul could barely communicate.
He had to stay in the hospital for two-and-a-half weeks, undergoing eight hand operations while he was there, plus two more after he was discharged from that intial stay, and lost 30 pounds.
The entire story is fascinating, with Pierre-Paul revealing that the bone in his middle finger came out during his second game back, against the New England Patriots, and had to be trimmed and sewn back into his skin, and shedding light on his struggles: wiping his glasses is difficult, and he had his button-down shirts tailored to place snaps on the left cuffs, since he lacks the dexterity in his hand to do a button cuff.
He’s been the butt of jokes, but also an inspiration, and has found inspiration in others who live with disabilities and amputations.
“I could dwell on it, like, Damn, I wish I had that finger,” Pierre-Paul says, “but when I look in the mirror, I’m happy. Thank the Lord—it could have been worse.”
